He's great. We just finished watching Franny's Feet. She tries on every pair of shoes that come through her grandfather's shoe repair shop. The shoes send her off to magical lands and give her athlete's foot.

I don't know if this is impressive or not to you guys but I shoulder pressed 60 pounds dumbbells in each arm for about 6-7 reps. After I did it, I felt like as if I had won the championship or something.

saying too many dudes are Tyson Chandler, trying
to lead their teams and went nowhere

Scarborough, We Go Hard..

Join Date: Dec 2007

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Quote:

Originally Posted by 007nites

I don't know if this is impressive or not to you guys but I shoulder pressed 60 pounds dumbbells in each arm for about 6-7 reps. After I did it, I felt like as if I had won the championship or something.

Perhaps when some folks glimpse O'Neal's biceps, tattooed and substantial in the grand tradition of NBA power players from Karl Malone to Alonzo Mourning, they see strength. But when Keith D'Amelio sees them, he rolls his eyes and shakes his head. D'Amelio is Toronto's strength and conditioning coach, and he knows the dubious methods O'Neal employed to swell those pythons. O'Neal will cop to the crimes himself, actually.

"My prison workout," said O'Neal, describing his secret. And no, he is not talking about the Barry Bonds-Endorsed Facing-Prison Workout.

O'Neal's favoured regimen is presumably drug free (although the NBA's testing program is far from world leading). But that doesn't mean O'Neal's program isn't illicit in the eyes of the experts. The veteran player said he favours exercises including "curls, bench press, flies – old-school stuff." And many of those old-school weightlifting techniques have long been abandoned by most of the folks who populate the staffs of professional sports teams.

"The biceps curl is the most pointless exercise in the world," D'Amelio was saying a while back, before O'Neal came up lame. "It's vanity. It's guys wanting to look tough. I guess that's what they equate toughness with."

This is not simply a matter of preference. It is, to D'Amelio, a matter of preservation.

"The teams that either don't value strength training, or they're stuck back in the Dark Ages, they lead the league in injuries every year. Every year," said D'Amelio.

That's a stat worth looking into, although man-games-lost-to-injury numbers are notoriously deceiving. Still, D'Amelio has made his case well enough that, while O'Neal sometimes goes his own way in the weight room, most of Toronto's roster follows the team-prescribed program to the letter.

What does D'Amelio preach? It's too complicated to detail here, but the program aims to build what's known as functional strength, an overall increase in the body's ability to handle the NBA grind.

While the biceps curl and the bench press are perhaps the flagship exercises of a bygone time in sports conditioning in which one or two muscles were worked in isolation, D'Amelio said the signature movements in a more state-of-the-art program force a group of many muscles, big and small, to fire together. The pull-up, a variation on the chin-up, is a favourite, as is the single-leg squat. Both are relatively difficult exercises for the uninitiated – "We have guys who come here who've never done a pull-up," D'Amelio said – but an anecdotal survey of the locker room suggests that many players are convinced of the soundness of the approach.

"Curls are for girls," said Jason Kapono, the shooting specialist who, though he has the biceps of a trout, raves about how much better he feels since taking up the club's program.

"It's about preventing injuries, not looking good," said Chris Bosh, the rail-thin all-star who is cited by D'Amelio as one of the roster's strongest men and who, touch wood, hasn't missed a game this season. "I don't want to get bigger, necessarily. I want to get stronger and feel better."

There are no absolutes in the human-body business. D'Amelio cited Jose Calderon as a shining example of dedication to his program, and yet Calderon, out with a sore hamstring, has been plagued by injury for much of the season.

And O'Neal probably wouldn't mind it being pointed out that he has put together an impressive career by sticking to what works for him. O'Neal, indeed, is unapologetic about exercising his primal urge to pump up.

"That's what I do," he said. "Obviously the dynamics of weight training have changed so much. But I've always been a power lifter and I stay strong. I respect what Keith brings to the table, but some days I just tell him, `Hey Keith, I need my prison workout.'"

D'Amelio shrugged and shook his head: "When J.O. wants to do (curls), and I know he wants to do 'em, I'm just like, `Okay, but they're not helping you at all.' There is no benefit from an athletic standpoint or to keep you healthy."

a bunch of geeks at work are going on and on about P90x. there's a girl who stuck to it and i must say the transformation was impressive.
i've always been skeptical about these types of programs as i;ve always thought that if you stuck to some exercise program and ate accordingly then you'd be hard pressed to not see some kind of result, depending on where your body was in the first place.

a bunch of geeks at work are going on and on about P90x. there's a girl who stuck to it and i must say the transformation was impressive.
i've always been skeptical about these types of programs as i;ve always thought that if you stuck to some exercise program and ate accordingly then you'd be hard pressed to not see some kind of result, depending on where your body was in the first place.

im glad you mentioned P-90x cling.
if you have the motivation to actually stick with this program - you will reap all the benefits in the world.

a pudgy dude at my gym did it, and he has transformed into a ripped beast.
its amazing to see him now.
he was always so shy and reserved and wore big baggy clothes to the gym. now, he's ripped, wears cut off shirts, shorts, and is beeming with confidnece.

i tried the Abs portion of the program and it is an absolute killer.

if you're not mentally ready to give 3 months of hardcore training a shot, then i'd suggest to not even bother with trying this program. but if you have the heart and passion to do it; then you should definitely try this.... its worth it.

I have the full copy saved on my laptop at home if anyone wants it.
seriously, send me 5 bucks and a 5GB memory stick and i'll rip it for you.... if you're interested.

im glad you mentioned P-90x cling.
if you have the motivation to actually stick with this program - you will reap all the benefits in the world.

a pudgy dude at my gym did it, and he has transformed into a ripped beast.
its amazing to see him now.
he was always so shy and reserved and wore big baggy clothes to the gym. now, he's ripped, wears cut off shirts, shorts, and is beeming with confidnece.

i tried the Abs portion of the program and it is an absolute killer.

if you're not mentally ready to give 3 months of hardcore training a shot, then i'd suggest to not even bother with trying this program. but if you have the heart and passion to do it; then you should definitely try this.... its worth it.

I have the full copy saved on my laptop at home if anyone wants it.
seriously, send me 5 bucks and a 5GB memory stick and i'll rip it for you.... if you're interested.

No thanks, I'll stick to my jail workout. Although I heard PX90 is pretty good.

im glad you mentioned P-90x cling.
if you have the motivation to actually stick with this program - you will reap all the benefits in the world.

I've been following it for a while, and I can say yes it does work. I've only been following the weight lifting videos but for cardio and others I do my own thing (shadow boxing, speed bag, jump rope, jogging).

Just wait till the 2nd and 3rd days TO after your first workout. You'll be even more sore.

I just started doing squats and deadlines. I'm sore as hell now as well. I saw some power lifter guy at the gym doing one handed dead lifts with 295 pounds. Actually his form kinda looked like a dumbell row except with a barbell. Impressive though.